As Electronic Medical Records help physicians sharpen their insights into patient care and treatment, EMR may well become the healthiest opportunity the profession has ever seen.


The U.S. healthcare sector suffers from a painful visual impairment: Doctors, nurses, and specialists cannot get a quick, accurate, or cost-efficient read on a patient’s problems because the sector remains mired in paperwork. The consulting profession believes that it can help deliver a cure in the form of electronic medical records (EMR).

EMR experts say that the digitization of medical records and the development of standards that govern the sharing and security of that information will sharpen physicians’ insights into patient suffering, speed clinical decision-making, and improve patient treatment. The same experts believe that EMR can greatly reduce the sector’s administrative costs, which have metastasized to the point that they threaten the health of the overall economy. Above all, EMR supporters point to the benefits in store for patients: no more redundant forms or lab tests, fewer treatment errors, and more effective and efficient care from physicians.

“This is the last industry to move off of paper,” notes Ivo Nelson, healthcare industry leader, global and Americas, for IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS). “We’re on the front end of this movement, which likely will be a ‘megatrend’ for at least the next 10 or 15 years. And this is not just a U.S. movement — we’re seeing substantial opportunities across the globe.”

Second opinions corroborate Nelson’s assessment. The compound annual growth rate of EMR spending in the healthcare sector was a stout 23 percent between 2003 and 2005, according to Bain & Company, which also forecasts that EMR adoption among large hospitals will nearly double from 21 percent today to about 40 percent during the next three-and-a-half years.

“This is a major driver of technology spending in healthcare,” reports Bain’s David Bellaire, a partner in the firm’s worldwide healthcare practice.

“Survey work completed by Bain in the past six months among provider and payer organizations across the U.S. indicates that of the most important IT applications under development, EMR now ranks as number one…” says Bellaire

EMR, or EHR (“electronic health records”), projects also represent a major risk for consulting firms that are marshalling resources to conduct these large, lengthy, lucrative, and highly complex engagements. An EMR implementation at a large metropolitan hospital can last from three to eight years and require a $100 million or more investment. And the technology is only part of the project, which also includes business process reengineering, sweeping change management requirements, and ongoing training.

Spending money to treat soaring costs seems to make sense in a sector where antibiotics operate on a similar premise. Yet, healthcare remains acutely resistant to change due to a unique business model (which can be generally described as a highly regulated and highly competitive not-for-profit environment) and unusual organizational structures (in which doctors work primarily for themselves). Consultants will have to overcome those change management challenges as well as cost issues, privacy concerns, and other hurdles if their firms are to benefit from this rare opportunity.